Page 84 - Graphic Design and Print Production Fundamentals

72 Chapter 3. Design Elements, Design Principles, and Compositional Organization
by experimenting with, and breaking free from universal rules of visual structure. It is important is to
match the structure of the composition to the needs of the project.

Typographic hierarchy is very important in design. A body of text is made more comprehensible by
imposing order through a system of titles, subtitles, sections, and subsections. Hierarchy is created when
the levels of the hierarchy are clear and distinguishable from one another. Subtle signs of difference are
not effective. Typography acts as a tonal voice for the viewer, and must create clear variation in tone,
pitch, and melody.

Hierarchy is usually created using similarity and contrast. Similar elements have equality in typographic
hierarchy. Dominant and subordinate roles are assigned to elements when there is enough contrast
between them. The bigger and darker an element is, the more importance it has. Smaller and lighter sizes
and tones imply lesser importance.

Every hierarchy has a most important level and a least important level. The elements that fall between
the two are ranked according to size and position. However, if you subdivide the text with too many
levels, the contrast between different levels will blur their differences in the hierarchical order.

A good strategy to follow with text design is to apply three levels of typographic hierarchy.

Title

The function of a title is to attract the reader to the content of the text block. Often, the title is visually
‘flavourful’ and possesses a strong visual dynamic and energy.

Subtitle

Second-level typography gives the reader the ability to distinguish between types of information within
the text block. This level of type includes subheads, pull quotes, captions, and anything else that can
help detail and support understanding of the text-block information.

Text block

The text block is the content. As opposed to the ‘display’ function of the title and subtitle, the function
of the text block is to make the content legible and easy to digest visually. Readers should be able to
decide if they want to read this level based on primary (title) and secondary (subtitle) type levels.

Typically, a typographic hierarchy will convey information from general to specific as it progresses from
title to text block. The general points presented in the title will be the most important and will be seen by
most everyone. Think of how a newspaper is scanned for interesting news items: If readers are interested
in the title, they may choose to read more detailed and in-depth information in the associated text block.

Media Attributions

• alignment by Ken Jeffrey

• Blast2_movement by Wyndham Lewis © Public Domain